Adaptation for integration

Craft villages are places where the essence of people’s crafts come together, helping to create jobs and increase revenue in rural communities. Craft villages must adapt their thinking and business strategies to thrive and meet the needs of their customers as the trend toward integration continues.

Viet Tien carpentry village, Tu Xa commune, Lam Thao district, blends automation and crafts in its manufacturing process to ensure product beauty.

The province includes over 70 artisan villages, which employ approximately 16,800 people, including Vietnamese than 11,700 permanent workers, and generate over 1,000 billion VND in income each year. Craft villages function in four major industrial groups: processing and conserving agricultural, forestry, and fisheries goods, handicrafts, building, construction material manufacturing, and the production and marketing of ornamental creatures.

Adapting to the market mechanism, in many craft villages, in addition to the dynamism and improvement of craft households' skills, many forms of production such as enterprises, production groups, and cooperatives play an important role in organizing product production and consumption. Some craft village enterprises and cooperatives have taken proactive steps to integrate, joint venture, restructure production and business, and use modern technologies to survive. Enterprises and cooperatives in craft villages play an important role in pioneering the application of new science and technology, introducing machinery into some stages of production, helping to increase productivity and product quality, and creating market competitiveness for industry products. Currently, the province contains over 40 enterprises and cooperatives in craft villages.

Da Hen tea production and processing craft village in Dong Luong commune, Cam Khe district, has been recognized since 2010. To establish ties and boost market competitiveness, the Da Hen tea production and processing cooperative was founded in 2017 as a cooperative in artisan villages. Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Head of the Craft Village and Director of the Cooperative, stated: "Establish a legally recognized cooperative to collaborate with production groups and enterprises, grow markets, and develop local tea plant brands. At the same time, cooperatives strengthen ties of households by producing capital and human resources, incorporating science and technology into production, and increasing worker productivity. Currently, customer expectations for quality and product design are rising, and competition in the tea sector is fierce, forcing craft villages and cooperatives to adapt, develop brands, and confirm quality product quantity. At the provincial level, the cooperative’s goods currently fulfill requirements of three and four-star-OCOP standard.

In the market mechanism, handicraft villages must innovate modern equipment and use science and technology to production while still inheriting traditional practices to boost productivity, quality, and product competitiveness. Viet Tien carpentry village, Tu Xa commune, Lam Thao district, contains about 30 households that practice the art. Mr. Nguyen Huu Thuy, Chairman of the Commune People’s Committee, stated that the carpentry village is vital in diversifying the economic structure and providing a high income for a portion of the commune’s population. Along with traditional experience, households have actively investigated, produced, improved designs, and enhanced product quality ranging from domestic appliances to worship objects, decorations, and so on, while incorporating traditional artistic styles as well as new aesthetic trends. In example, families have used machines at several phases to aid enhance labor productivity and vary product ideas."

To increase the efficiency of craft villages in the future, training must be strengthened to improve the qualifications, management, and application of technology of enterprises, production houses, and craft village workers. Encourage the growth of varied kinds of production in craft villages, and enhance ties between production and consumption of items. At the same time, the craft villages must reorganize their goods, develop new items, and fulfill client demands; actively use information technology and e-commerce.

Nguyen Hue